


Something About that Song

by midoriverte



Series: Your Ex-Lover is Dead [1]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6391759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midoriverte/pseuds/midoriverte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haise always made a point of avoiding people who felt like they were connected to his past, but something about the boy he met in the bookstore kept drawing him back...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Haise often got the impression that he knew people he had never seen before. It was usually a fleeting sensation. His gaze lingered too long on one person he saw in the street, and something in him knew he had seen that face before. Sometimes it was worse, and he would feel a faint ache in his heart that would bother him for the rest of the day. 

He wasn’t stupid. He knew that for him, these cases of déjà vu were quite literal, and that he must have known these people before he lost all his memories, even if he had no idea who they were to him. But he had no desire to figure it out (he told himself), and did his best to forget all about it and not acknowledge his past life at all. He had his life with the CCG now; he couldn’t risk his current life crashing down around him.

His resolve to never acknowledge these people was utterly destroyed one day when he was in a bookstore. It was so cliché that Haise might have found it funny in other circumstances. 

It was a small used bookstore that he had walked past a thousand times but he had never had a chance to go into. Why he chose that day to go actually go into this bookstore he had no idea. It wasn’t like he had any more free time than usual, but before he could even think about it he had pushed the door open and he figured that he might as well look at the books they had while he was in there.

The bookstore was small and all the dusty shelves had so many books on them that it was almost hard to take one off the shelves. There were a few other customers but it wasn’t very busy. Haise took his time looking at the shelves, he reached out to take a book and nearly jumped a foot in the air when his hand met someone else’s. 

Haise pulled his hand back as quickly as if he’d been burned. He hadn’t even noticed that another person had come up beside him.

“S-sorry,” Haise stammered.

“Don’t worry about it!” The other person said.

“You can take it-” Haise tried to say, but his voice died in his throat when he got a better look at the other customer.

He was a young man, about the same age as Haise. He had slightly long, dark brown hair and warm, brown eyes. He was smiling, and Haise thought it was the kindest smile he had ever seen.

Suddenly, Haise felt tears spring to his eyes. He felt an awful, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that made him feel like he had just missed a stair and fallen.

“No, you can have it!” The other man said cheerfully. He had already taken the book off the shelf and was holding it out to Haise. “To be honest, this wasn’t even for me. I was going to get this for a friend.”

“Th-then I couldn’t possibly…” Haise’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

“I insist,” the man pressed the book into Haise’s hand and left before Haise could protest (maybe it was Haise’s imagination, but the man’s hand had seemed to linger on his for just a second too long). He wasn’t sure he would have been able to even if he’d tried. He was shaking and he had to lean against the shelf until he calmed down. 

He almost considered putting the book back and just leaving the store without buying anything, but for some reason he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

When he had finally managed to calm himself down he went to the counter to pay. He was barely even surprised when the cashier told him that the man had paid for his book for him.

Feeling vaguely like he had just been flirted with using a book, Haise left the store and walked home.

Haise didn’t even open the book for the next few days. He tried to push the man from his mind like he did every other time this happened, but he found that he couldn’t. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to. The idea of forgetting him filled him with a sickening sense of guilt. Once he got over the initial shock of meeting him, he realized that a small part of him was almost… happy. He had no idea who this man was, but meeting him had made him happy. 

Haise finally picked up the book, and couldn’t help but smile when he remembered the man’s words.

_I was going to get this for a friend._

He had always wanted to avoid the people he thought were from this past, but he knew that he had to see this man again.

It looked like he would have to pay that bookstore another visit.


	2. Chapter 2

It took a few days for Haise to work up the courage to go back to the bookstore where he had seen the man that he was sure he had known before. His heart was pounding when he pushed the door open and he felt both excited and terrified as wandered around the store, sure that he was going to see the man every time he turned into another aisle.

But after an hour Haise had to admit defeat. The man had not come back to the store and the young woman behind the counter was starting to look at him suspiciously. He picked out a book at random and paid for it in order to not look as creepy as he felt, and left the store feeling bitterly disappointed.

To his horror, he actually felt tears spring to his eyes as he walked home and he wiped them away with his sleeve. What right did he have to be disappointed, or to expect that he would show up at the store again? He didn’t know him at all, and for all he knew he had only gone to that store to buy a book for his friend and wasn’t a regular customer.

Haise tried to force himself not to think about how miserable he felt as he went home and made dinner for his squad. He wasn’t sure he pulled it off very well, because Mutsuki and Shirazu looked really concerned for him the entire night and he eventually went to bed early just to avoid their worried glances.

Haise actually did try to sleep early, but wound up staring at his ceiling all night. He had no idea what had him so upset, but he resolved that he would go back to the bookstore until he found the man. It seemed pointless even to him, but he had no other choice.

He went back to the store every day after work and the man was never there. He even tried going on his lunch breaks to see if he would be there if he just went at a different time, and still there was no sign of him. 

Haise was starting to lose hope. He had no idea why he was so desperate to find this man but he was determined to not give up. The pile of books he had on his desk was growing so large that he was sure he’d never have the chance to actually read them all.

He had no idea what he would do if the man didn’t show up at the store again. It was Haise’s only connection with him, he didn’t know what his name was and had no way of finding out.

He went to the store after work once again, more out of habit than because he actually expected the man to be there. He wandered the aisles until he got to the back. There was a man there with short, bleached-blonde hair. He had ear buds in his ears and was humming along to a song that Haise couldn’t hear. 

Something about the song seemed very familiar. Haise froze. It couldn’t possibly be the man he was looking for, had he dyed his hair? 

Haise knew that he was going to look really creepy if he was wrong, but something told him he wasn’t. Before he could even think of it, he reached out and tapped the man on the shoulder.

He jumped and spun around, looking slightly alarmed, but Haise was relieved to see him smile when he recognized him (and perhaps even more relieved that he had recognized him at all).

“Did you need something?” the man asked, removing his ear buds.

Haise hadn’t actually thought this far ahead. The man seemed even more familiar to him now than he had before (was it the hair?) and he found himself unable to speak for a moment.

Forcing himself to speak before his silence got too weird, Haise said “I just wanted to thank you for the book you bought me the other day. You really didn’t have to do that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the man shrugged. “You wanted it more than I did.”

“But, it was for your friend…”

“Yeah,” the man said. “Don’t worry about it.”

There was a slight edge to his voice this time that told Haise to drop the subject.

“So, uh, do you come here often?” Haise asked, even though he already knew the answer.

“Well,” the man scratched the back of his head awkwardly, “I try to, but I’ve been pretty busy lately. How about you?”

“I… come pretty often.” He didn’t add because of you. Searching for a less awkward topic, Haise ended up saying “You had brown hair the last time I saw you.” Which was certainly not less awkward.

The man took it in stride. “I used to dye it all the time but I let it grow out… but I figured it was time to go back to tradition.”

“I like it,” Haise said, and immediately wanted to sink into the floor.

The man gave him a wide, genuine smile that gave Haise butterflies. He wasn’t entirely sure the butterflies were from a sense of familiarity.

For the first time, Haise noticed that the man had a deep scar on the right side of his face. Haise felt his face go red when he realized he had been too busy looking at his smile before now to even notice.

The man held out his hand, “My name is Hideyoshi Nagachika, you can just call me Hide.”

“Haise Sasaki,” Haise said, taking his hand, firmly ignoring the swooping feeling he felt at that name. “Uh, that song you were humming earlier sounded really familiar.”

“D-does it?” Haise could have sworn Hide’s smile slipped for just a second, but it was back so fast that Haise thought that maybe he’d imagined it. “It’s this by this English band I’ve been into since I was in high school.”

“Hmm, maybe I don’t know it then…” Haise never listened to English music (not that he had much of a chance to listen to anything since he was always so busy), but he could have sworn he had heard it before…

“Well, maybe if you want you can listen with me?”

Hide looked so excited that Haise felt bad about turning him down, but he knew it was getting late and he should probably get home or no one would eat

“Sorry, I should probably get going…”

“Then maybe later?” Hide said quickly. “Over coffee?”

Haise grinned. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

“It doesn’t have to be, unless you wanted it to be… I mean, it could just be coffee? But it could also be a date?”

“A… date would be nice,” Haise said, surprising himself with his boldness.

Hide smiled even wider than before, if that was even possible.

“So I should give you my number?”

Haise didn’t tell his squad that he had a date when he went home that night, but he was humming a little as he cooked dinner and was in such an obviously better mood than he had been for the past while that he was sure that it was obvious something good had happened to him.

He wasn’t sure who Hideyoshi Nagachika was, exactly, but he was looking forward to getting to know him.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for HideHaise Week 2015... but I didn't have an AO3 back then so I just posted it on my Tumblr.


End file.
